Portable devices that link users to communication services are popular and widespread. Personal digital-assistants (PDAs) include pocket-personal computers with a range of computing capabilities. Cellular telephones are commercially available with more and more functionality that until recently has been provided by computing devices interconnected using wired communication links. For example, cellular telephone service providers now provide email services, paging, and a host of other information services.
One of the driving forces behind the popularity of mobile-communication devices is the ability to interact with devices coupled to the Internet and other networks from anywhere within the reach of a wireless-communication service provider. Wireless-communication links allow the operator of a mobile-computing device and/or a mobile-communication device to access data and devices coupled to networks accessible through the wireless-communication service provider. For example, a cellular telephone user can access information via the Internet or a laptop computer user can locate, access, and retrieve files from a remote office LAN, in addition to accessing the Internet.
The Internet is a world-wide collection of networks and gateways that use the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite of protocols to communicate with one another. At the heart of the Internet is a backbone of high-speed data communication lines between major nodes or host computers consisting of thousands of commercial, government, educational, and other computer systems that route data packets from node to node across the various networks.
The World-Wide-Web or web refers to the total set of interlinked hypertext documents residing on hypertext-transfer protocol (HTTP) servers all around the world. Documents on the web, called pages or web pages, are written in hypertext mark-up language (HTML) identified by uniform-resource locators (URLs) that identify the particular machine and pathname by which a file can be accessed and transmitted from node to node to the end user using HTTP. HTML-based pages contain standard text as well as formatting codes that indicate how the page should be displayed. A web site is a related group of these documents and associated files, scripts, subprocedures, databases, etc. that are provided by an HTTP server coupled to one of the various networks.
Users of mobile-communication devices need an application program generally called a “browser” and a communication link to the Internet to access a web site. Browsers are software applications that locate, request, receive, and display content stored within a specific device coupled to the Internet. Popular browsers for laptop and desktop-computing devices are graphical browsers. Graphical browsers display graphics including text. Browsers for mobile-communication devices generally display text information, although more recent communication services provide some graphics and sound.
Web browsers also enable a user to navigate the Internet, i.e., view HTML files stored on a web-connected device, view data stored on another network, or access data stored on a user's computing device or the user's mobile-communication device. A user can navigate the Internet by entering a URL in an address-entry field provided by the browser or selecting a “link” embedded in a displayed representation of an HTML file. A user can navigate network-coupled devices by entering appropriate paths in the address-entry field. Once the user has found a folder or file-of-interest, the user can enter a command to view the contents of the folder or open the file-of-interest. When the file-of-interest is a HTML file, the browser displays the file like any other web page. Since mobile-communication devices often are not equipped to store and run robust applications, the representation of the downloaded or otherwise identified HTML file is often limited to text.
A user of a mobile-communication device can download a web page or access other information by locating an associated file stored on a device connected to the web. The user can then initiate a print job to create a hard copy of the web page. For example, existing PDAs generally enable printing from the PDA to a printer using a wireless link. However, methods for enabling mobile-communication devices to print a file are problematic.
First, limited storage space on the mobile-communication device hinders the ability of the device to efficiently print data-rich content. Second, wireless links can be surreptitiously intercepted. While data-encryption techniques can be applied to lessen the likelihood that information will be casually intercepted and misused, encryption and the subsequent decryption in the receiving printer exacerbate the inefficiencies of transferring data over a wireless link.
In addition to inefficiencies related to the bandwidth of the wireless link, printing a file from a mobile-communication device is problematic for additional reasons. First, conventional protocols for transferring data to a printer do not provide a mechanism to control printer operation. Consequently, the user of a mobile-communication device cannot set printer controls that alter operational characteristics of the printer. Second, conventional protocols do not provide a mechanism for the printer to notify the user regarding its present configuration i.e., paper jams, ink level, job completion, errors, etc.
Another problem concerns how to forward data from a mobile-communication device in a format that is recognizable by the specific printer. To print information from a mobile-communication device, the device must either store or locate a driver that controls the specific printer that the user would like to use. A driver is a software program that translates generic commands typically generated by one or more application programs into device-specific commands understood by the device.
Consequently, improved ways are needed to initiate, control, and provide printer-ready data to a designated printer from a mobile-communication device.